Forbidden Fortress 2

Disclaimer

Warning !
This "game" was made during "Make Something Horrible 2016" Game Jam. It was intended to be made as
THE MOST AWFUL game possible. Controls, graphics, feedback, sound, everything was made badly on purpose. Fun cannot be guaranteed.

Each time you will "land" on a platform, you'll have to press an additional key (one of the 4 "action" keys, to validate a random "Quick Time Event"). Each successful action produces a different musical note to complete a background melody. If any action fails, you'll be forced to start again at the beginning of the level.

Know your enemies and avoid them (Oil drops falling from the ceiling, bats arriving from the left or right, spikes)

Beware of mysterious dark obscurity (may pop up at any time)

Reach the exit door of every corridor (9 levels total). As soon as you complete the first corridor, the magical and demonic scents will turn Kitto's head (as well as the screen).

Controls

Why is this game so bad?

Here are listed some intended unpleasant stuff about gameplay / ergonomy / graphics... programmed as is to match the requirements of the gamejam:

Each sound effect not played immediately, but with an "undefined and random" delay.

Some sound effects are random. There is no equivalence between action/event and the sound effect type.

Hitboxes do not exactly match the reality

The platforms are set up randomly which does not guarantee to have a possible path to the finish point. "Fortunately" each game will trigger a new set of platforms for you to have an extra "chance" to play.

The jump is not parabolic (and thus, not intuitive). This can cause collision problems with the platforms. For example the player may end up walking a few pixels above the platform.

Having to perform a QTE when landing on a platform : a confusing feature by itself

QTEs do not always work and some will be accepted even if you pressed the wrong button (one chance out of 20).

In the background other inactive platforms are drawn (slightly shaded) to mislead the player

Some platforms do move, with a very abrupt trajectory (triangular, absolute value). It would have been more intuitive to code a slow sinusoid (and easier to implement).

On moving platforms the player must walk to move forward because the platform does not automatically move the player horizontally.

Graphical clipping problems when the platforms appear on the edges of the screen

The movement of the platforms may sometimes include a "hole" (overflow problem you may see from time to time, after 4 to 18 minutes, due to a misuse of unsigned short)

Whenever an "enemy" collides the player, the HUD will show some information about damage taken, which is unnecessary because they kill instantly and complexify the display. Especially the number of damage is random and ridiculously high (> 1000000).

Lots of text on the Game over screen, and not even a second to read it. (And the text is incorrectly cropped)

Name of the game: "xxxxx - Quest of the magical dragon keystone". Seems pretty epic. This contrasts with the result. Another disappointment.

For those who would finish every single level of the game, there is no dragon at the end.

The name of the game is displayed at the bottom of the screen and take a lot of space. Why not? ...But the sprite is badly cut and hard to read, and moreover an annoying background stroboscopic effect is drawn.

Ingame background contain gray stones (in sinusoidal motion) + square pink clouds. This is not very beautiful and gives no progress indication in the level.

The "walls" delimiting the level (utter left and right) do not handle collision. You can get out of the level.

The highscore is not taken into account (and moreover there's a typo: "hihgscore")

Background "music" is a superposition of demonstration instruments. Some copy-pastes of a bassline, with modified pitch to strengthen a "false note" feeling. The rhythm is arranged at random. The musical loop is very small (quite irritating) and cut in the middle of a musical phrase. This is particularly cacophonic since we already mentioned that ambient sound effects are also random.

In addition, each successful QTE is supposed to play a music note(piano) that normally completes a melody... But the order of notes is random, notes don't stick to the "rhythm", and the choice of notes includes many sharps badly used.

The music does not restart after a "Game over" screen. It stops forever.

The HUD is placed in the middle of the screen so that you can see it clearly at any time. It includes useless information such as "successfully jumped at position x,y". No emotion through these texts (no "perfect" / "good" or timing indication, no "ouch!" When damage is taken)

The score increases randomly (no scoring challenge)

After a few minutes the score returns to -32,768 because of overflow.

You die when your health is 1 (instead of 0 ...)

From level 2, the screen display rotates at 360° continuously, and at irregular speed. I hope you don't have motion sickness.

The logo on ITCH: It is badly cropped and incorporates a blinking effect (not very nice).